Abstract:
The legacies and memories of the past always inform political decisionmaking
in the present, but the tumultuous nature of Germany's twentieth-century
history has focused considerable attention on the issue of "coming to terms"
with the Nazi past (Vergangenheitsbewaltigung). This is a slippery term that encompasses
specific attempts to bring Nazi perpetrators to account and seek justice for their victims,
as well as a more general effort to face up to and remember the 12-year period of
Nazi rule under Adolf Hitler (I933-1945). The highly emotional and morally
charged debate about the adequacy of this process has often hindered, and even substituted
for sober analysis of the past's role in Germany's postwar politics.
